strange logic

Childhood is a strange thing. We often remember very little of it but many will claim it as one of the most precious things they have. It also can have a very large influence on how we perceive or understand the world around us, and the person we become as we grow.

 

Anyway, I thought I would share one thing with you that has had an influence on me as I have grown and the way I sometimes approach different situations in life.

 

It is a song. My Mum used to sing this to me (or hum, or whistle) when I was young to help put me to sleep. Most of the time it was just the tune but still the words have stuck with me always. It is about a man who takes such joy in playing his music he chooses to do that before anything else. One day another man comes along and listens to him playing out the front of his house while it is raining and suggests that the man should fix his roof (as it's leaking - a lot) on a dry day, to which the man responds that it does not leak when it's dry. It's a strange type of logic, another way of thinking, I think that is what I liked about it.

 

Arkansas Traveler

 

Oh, once upon a time in Arkansas,

An old man sat in his little cabin door

And fiddled at a tune that he liked to hear,

A jolly old tune that he played by ear.

It was raining hard, but the fiddler didn't care,

He sawed away at the popular air,

Tho' his rooftree leaked like a waterfall,

That didn't seem to bother the man at all.

 

A traveler was riding by that day,

And stopped to hear him a-practicing away;

The cabin was a-float and his feet were wet,

But still the old man didn't seem to fret.

So the stranger said "Now the way it seems to me,

You'd better mend your roof," said he.

But the old man said as he played away,

"I couldn't mend it now, it's a rainy day."

 

The traveler replied, "That's all quite true,

But this, I think, is the thing to do;

Get busy on a day that is fair and bright,

Then patch the old roof till it's good and tight."

But the old man kept on a-playing at his reel,

And tapped the ground with his leathery heel.

"Get along," said he, "for you give me a pain;

My cabin never leaks when it doesn't rain."

 

 

God Bless